Tearful and saddening with the sadden’d blaze
Mine eye the gleam pursues with wistful gaze:
Sees shades on shades with deeper tint impend, 105
Till chill and damp the moonless night descend
TO FORTUNE
TO THE EDITOR OF THE ‘MORNING CHRONICLE’
SIR, — The following poem you may perhaps deem admissible into
your journal — if not, you will commit it
— I am, with more respect and gratitude than I
ordinarily feel for Editors of Papers, your obliged, &c.,
CANTAB. — S. T. C.
TO FORTUNE
On buying a Ticket in the Irish Lottery
Composed during a walk to and from the Queen’s Head, Gray’s
Inn Lane, Holborn, and Hornsby’s and Co., Cornhill.
Promptress of unnumber’d sighs,
O snatch that circling bandage from thine eyes!
O look, and smile! No common prayer
Solicits, Fortune! thy propitious care!
For, not a silken son of dress, 5
I clink the gilded chains of politesse,
Nor ask thy boon what time I scheme
Unholy Pleasure’s frail and feverish dream;
Nor yet my view life’s dazzle blinds —
Pomp! — Grandeur! Power! — I give you to the winds! 10
Let the little bosom cold
Melt only at the sunbeam ray of gold —
My pale cheeks glow — the big drops start —
The rebel Feeling riots at my heart!
And if in lonely durance pent, 15
Thy poor mite mourn a brief imprisonment —
That mite at Sorrow’s faintest sound
Leaps from its scrip with an elastic bound!
But oh! if ever song thine ear
Might soothe, O haste with fost’ring hand to rear 20
One Flower of Hope! At Love’s behest,
Trembling, I plac’d it in my secret breast:
And thrice I’ve view’d the vernal gleam,
Since oft mine eye, with Joy’s electric beam,
Illum’d it — and its sadder hue 25
Oft moisten’d with the Tear’s ambrosial dew!
Poor wither’d floweret! on its head
Has dark Despair his sickly mildew shed!
But thou, O Fortune! canst relume
Its deaden’d tints — and thou with hardier bloom 30
May’st haply tinge its beauties pale,
And yield the unsunn’d stranger to the western gale!
1794
PERSPIRATION. A TRAVELLING ECLOGUE
The dust flies smothering, as on clatt’ring wheel
Loath’d Aristocracy careers along;
The distant track quick vibrates to the eye,
And white and dazzling undulates with heat,
Where scorching to the unwary traveller’s touch, 5
The stone fence flings its narrow slip of shade;
Or, where the worn sides of the chalky road
Yield their scant excavations (sultry grots!),
Emblem of languid patience, we behold
The fleecy files faint-ruminating lie. 10
ON BALA HILL
With many a weary step at length I gain
Thy summit, Bala! and the cool breeze plays
Cheerily round my brow — as hence the gaze
Returns to dwell upon the journey’d plain.
‘Twas a long way and tedious! — to the eye 5
Tho’ fair th’ extended Vale, and fair to view
The falling leaves of many a faded hue
That eddy in the wild gust moaning by!
Ev’n so it far’d with Life! in discontent
Restless thro’ Fortune’s mingled scenes I went, 10
Yet wept to think they would return no more!
O cease fond heart! in such sad thoughts to roam,
For surely thou ere long shalt reach thy home,
And pleasant is the way that lies before.
LINES: WRITTEN AT THE KING’S ARMS, ROSS, FORMERLY THE HOUSE OF THE ‘MAN OF ROSS’
Richer than Miser o’er his countless hoards,
Nobler than Kings, or king-polluted Lords,
Here dwelt the MAN OF ROSS! O Traveller, hear!
Departed Merit claims a reverent tear.
Friend to the friendless, to the sick man health, 5
With generous joy he view’d his modest wealth;
He heard the widow’s heaven-breath’d prayer of praise,
He mark’d the shelter’d orphan’s tearful gaze,
Or where the sorrow-shrivell’d captive lay,
Pour’d the bright blaze of Freedom’s noontide ray. 10
Beneath
